Concentration

Off the runway headed west. Clouds to the deck. All four engines running fine and his copilot was watching them. Tom was focussed on keeping the heavy bomber level and climbing. Severay guys had put planes of all types in the English channel focussed on something other than flying the plane. If they lived, the air corp was usually worse then death.

Tom was focussed. The instrument scan was important in light training aircraft and these big bombers. Airspeed to attitude to altitude to attitude to direction to attitude to airspeed, and so on. And while doing that you had to pay attention to a few other instruments which made sure the ones you were staring at werent lying to you.

It was intense work in the sense you had plenty to watch. However, once you got in to the routine it was difficult to keep your mind from wandering. Only when one of the primary things started getting off track did you have to jump back to the task versus just staring at the instruments. Tom's mind went often to home during these times. It was a time of focus but not yet the anxiety of the coming combat and the time prior to combat gave him an opportunity to think of many things. Most in the aircraft were more quiet during this time. All having in the back of their minds the events to come. Not too mention the blasted plane was noisy.

It was 9pm on Sunday night in England. So, lets see, 4pm or 5pm in Iowa. Tom's wife would be with friends or family following church. Tom's dear wife was a dedicated church goer and had a faith that Tom often relished, but couldnt quite come to grips with. Tom's mouth watered with the thought of the fried chicken, mashed potato's, sweet corn and the like all of them would be enjoying and the general feeling of fellowship that was present in that setting.

Tom was on again and off again in church. If he had something else to do he would do it. Tom's wife would be disappointed he knew, but wouldnt complain. Tom didnt really have any guilt about not going to church like his Catholic friends would express having been beaten in to going every Sunday. It wasnt that he didnt like it even. He just couldnt see going every Sunday and figured he knew the stories well enough. The pastor was so, so. That added to Tom's frustration sometimes especially if he had something better to do.